While other nonprofits like the Media Rating Council (MRC) audit platforms’ brand safety claims, and plenty of brand safety vendors including DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science help redirect brand spend, GARM’s role in creating standards was unique.

As brands reckoned with their roles perpetuating racial inequality during the protests of 2020, GARM was a useful forum, the adtech executive said. Brands could raise questions with platforms and tech vendors about how they could work together to stop the monetization of hate speech, and work together when mishaps happened, the source said.

“No one wanted to sit in front of the GARM steering call and not uphold what they said they were doing,” the source said, noting there were conversations at least bi-weekly at the time. The source noted conversations became less contentious in the last two years, and stopped attending the conversations in 2023.

“There were very productive conversations,” the source added.

Searching for a new and better GARM

Sources agreed that an independent, nonprofit should fulfill the void left by GARM. Schreurs suggested an organization like the International Standards Organization.

Keeping the organization independent is also important to advertisers. Garcia said GARM itself was hobbled by its lack of independence, as it counted brand safety vendors and platforms as members, according to a Web Archive screenshot of the now defunct web page. These organizations could work to make standards more narrow, she said.

Although, Garcia noted many trade organizations accept sponsorship deals from platforms.

“Advertiser standards should be advertiser-led, and advertisers should be aware adtech interests are informing recommendations,” Garcia said. “Either marketer trade associations should not accept funding from vendors, or should disclose this funding so that their members know that skepticism is warranted.”

Creating standards in partnership with publishers and platforms has the potential to neuter industry buying standards, but could also make standards more comprehensive, Schreurs said.

“I tend to agree with the WFA that it was essential to have [platforms] involved,” in creating standards, he said. “But of course, design by committee is difficult and there is an argument to be made that GARM could have been more ‘aggressive.’”